JEDDAH, 12 — Saudi Telecom Company yesterday dismissed press reports as “totally baseless” that it was planning further cuts in mobile phone charges. “These reports are fabricated and baseless rumors,” an official STC source told the Al-Madinah daily.
The source stressed that the company has no plans to reduce mobile phone charges at present, adding that STC made substantial cuts in rates four months ago. It slashed connection fees from SR1,500 to SR800 for ordinary mobiles and from SR500 to SR400 for family mobiles.
“We have also cut peak-hour cell phone charges from SR1.20 to 95 halalas per minute, off-peak hour charges from SR1 to 50 halalas and text message charges from 50 halalas to 30 halalas per message,” the source said. Newspaper reports had earlier quoted high-level sources as saying that STC was considering a further 50 percent reduction in connection fee, bringing charges for ordinary mobiles to SR400 and family mobiles to SR200. The reports said that mobile phone call tariff would be slashed to 50 halalas at peak hours and 25 halalas at off-peak hours.
STC offers two types of monthly mobile charges for specific number of minutes: SR100 inclusive of monthly subscription fee for 70 minutes; and SR200 inclusive of monthly subscription fee for 250 minutes.
In the first case, after the completion of 70 minutes, 85 halalas per minute will be charged at peak hours and 50 halalas at off-peak hours. In the second category, 75 halalas per minute will be charged at peak hours and 50 halalas at off-peak hours after the completion of 250 minutes.
